Fastest-shrinking jobs in America and alternative careers

Some jobs are seeing major growth...and some are seeing the opposite.

America's economy looks very different today than it did, say, twenty years ago. A major shift in technology and the inner workings of international trade and shipping has left workers with different futures than we may have seen for ourselves when we were first setting off in our careers.
And according to CareerBuilder and Economic Modeling Specialists Intl. data,* there are a number of jobs that are quickly shrinking, as well as jobs that are quickly growing, which can leave you with some interesting options that include better career security. Here are three major areas of change that we see opportunity in.

Digital and Physical Publishing
It's hard to say that libraries and bookstores were eagerly anticipating the technological overhauls that the new millennium brought. Along with e-books, browsing more content online and a cultural preference for consuming news on television and the Internet, there's been a national conversation about the future of writing and printing industries. Some occupations that focus on entering data and producing it are seeing quick decline, while opportunities abound in alternative occupations that embrace web and other tech skills and are in more lucrative industries that also need communication materials.

Shrinking occupations with a negative projected growth rate for 2011-2020

• Printing Press Operators (-12 percent)
• Paper Goods Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders (-13 percent)
• Data Entry Keyers (-13 percent)
• Print Binding and Finishing Workers (-14 percent)
• Reporters and Correspondents (-16 percent)
• Word Processors and Typists (-16 percent)

Alternative occupations that are projected to quickly grow 2011-202

• Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists (34 percent)
• Web Developers (30 percent)
• Archivists (20 percent)
• Technical Writers (18 percent)
• Public Relations and Fundraising Managers (17 percent)
• Media and Communication Workers, All Other (15 percent)
• Library Assistants, Clerical (14 percent)

Snail Mail and Door-to-Door Sales
Online shopping; two-day deliveries; email, text and instant messaging…how we purchase materials, have them delivered and have our own correspondences delivered is primarily dependent on private suppliers like Internet service providers, online stores and private shipping and logistics companies. Door-to-door sales workers and postal service workers are facing shrinking jobs as our needs have changed, but if you're drawn to these occupations due to their high rate of physical activity, being a part of the community or having the opportunity to earn more, there are alternative options that can capitalize on those preferences.

Shrinking occupations with a negative projected growth rate for 2011-2020

• Postal Service Clerks (-19 percent)
• Postal Service Mail Sorters, Processors, and Processing Machine Operators (-18 percent)
• Door-to-Door Sales Workers, News and Street Vendors, and Related Workers (-18 percent)
• Postal Service Mail Carriers (-15 percent)
• Postmasters and Mail Superintendents (-12 percent)

Alternative occupations that are projected to quickly grow 2011-2020

• Social and Human Service Assistants (26 percent)
• Taxi Drivers and Chauffeurs (22 percent)
• Exercise Physiologists (21 percent)
• Athletic Trainers (21 percent)
• Dietitians and Nutritionists (20 percent)
• Fitness Trainers and Aerobics Instructors (20 percent)
• Sales and Related Workers, All Other (17 percent)
• Sales Representatives, Services, All Other (16 percent)

Textile and Apparel Production
America's dependence on importing more and more commercial goods that are produced overseas is unsurprisingly affecting the number of workers who are needed to fill those production roles. While there's a major decline in the number of textile and apparel setters, operators and tenders, there are similar occupations that also require fine motor skills, attention to detail and contribute to manufacturing and production.

Shrinking occupations with a negative projected growth rate for 2011-2020

• Textile Knitting and Weaving Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders (-41 percent)
• Textile Bleaching and Dyeing Machine Operators and Tenders (-36 percent)
• Shoe Machine Operators and Tenders (-29 percent)
• Textile Winding, Twisting, and Drawing Out Machine Setters, Operators and Tenders (-23 percent)
• Textile Cutting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders (-22 percent)
• Sewing Machine Operators (-21 percent)
• Fabric and Apparel Patternmakers (-17 percent)

Alternative occupations that are projected to quickly grow 2011-2020

• Bicycle Repairers (27 percent)
• Welding, Soldering, and Brazing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders (27 percent)
• Mechanical Door Repairers (27 percent)
• Machinists (17 percent)
• Inspectors, Testers, Sorters, Samplers, and Weighers (11 percent)
• Separating, Filtering, Clarifying, Precipitating, and Still Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders (11 percent)

Staying ahead of economic trends can ensure that you're not left in a tight spot when the tides turn, or other economic struggles emerge. By beginning to research alternative jobs, and how you can bring your skills to those occupations, means that you're taking charge of your career, as well as your security and wellbeing.

Interns Reveal the Most Catastrophic Mistakes of Their Careers

You know you've screwed up when you accidentally bring an entire airport to a standstill

Business Insider

By Alex Lockie

We all make career mistakes — especially early on.

Some of us make minor blunders — like showing up a few minutes late for an interview, or forgetting to send a thank-you note immediately after — but others, it turns out, make catastrophic errors.

The good news is no matter how big or bad your mistakes are, you almost always learn something from them.

To find some of the worst gaffes interns have made, we looked through a Quora thread that posed the question: "What is the most catastrophic mistake made by an intern at a company?"

Here are some of our favorite responses:

1. User Michael Shiplet says at the last company he worked for, his team had been trying to secure a corporate partnership with UPS for about a year. "Everyone on the team had done backbreaking research, and the lead sales roles had spent several hundred hours crafting the higher levels of what this partnership would mean for both companies and drafting it into a beautiful partnership proposal (and I mean beautiful to read and to look at)," he explains. "And then I FedExed it to them."

Shiplet says his company lost the partnership a few business days later.

2. An anonymous user writes: "About 18 years ago as a student, I was doing research at London's Heathrow Airport, working in a room just below the control tower. We were listening to the control tower instructions and timing how long the pilots took to respond," he says.

His colleague left for lunch one day after accidentally turning his radio onto "broadcast" mode by accident. "[This] meant that no one was able to send or receive messages on the frequency that was being used to give take off permission," he explains. "I returned back to my desk and started to eat my lunch to discover that all departures from the airport had been brought to a standstill by someone who sounded like they were eating their lunch.

"The realization that it was the sound of MY lunch being eaten hit me about 10 minutes later. I rushed over and flicked the switch to off, and one of the busiest international airports in the world started to work again."

He says he was never caught.

3. Another anonymous source writes about how he was working in a downtown high-rise building as a manager for a tech-support outsourcer when, one night, some of his employees "had gotten hold of a couple of keychain laser pointers back when they first came out."

"So they were shining the laser pointers out the windows of the 24th floor of this building, where our offices were located. And it just so happened that they shone them into the windows of the hotel across the street. And it just so happened that on that particular night, the President of the United States was staying on that floor of the hotel in the room that faced our building."

"That's the only time I've ever met the Secret Service, and they don't have a sense of humor," the Quora user writes.

4. One anonymous user writes: "I once brushed against the wrong power switch and disconnected every telephone call being intercepted by a state police department at the time."      

The 2 Job Interview Traits That Hurt Your Chances Most

Why taking a Stuart Smalley approach can help you get the job

Next Avenue

By Richard Eisenberg

It's natural to be nervous going into a job interview, especially now that the government says the number of job openings has been falling. But a new study says there are two anxiety cues that could really hurt your chances: low assertiveness and talking s-l-o-w-l-y.

By contrast, don't worry too much about other tics that might make an interviewer think you're anxious. "If you fidget a little or adjust your clothes, no one will notice much," said Deborah M. Powell, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Guelph in Canada, who conducted the study with colleague Amanda Feiler. Their work was published in the Journal of Business and Psychology in an article called Behavioral Expression of Job Interview Anxiety.

Rating Job Candidates on Anxiety
Powell and Feiler had 119 Guelph students in the school's co-op program complete mock interviews with employees of Co-op and Career Services as part of their preparation applying for positions. They asked the "job applicants" to rate themselves for interview anxiety and asked the interviewers to rate the candidates on that, too. Then the interviewers rated the performance of the applicants. (Powell told me she couldn't think of any reason her study's results would have been different with older job candidates.)

The researchers noted that earlier research found that candidates who were anxious in job interviews received significantly lower ratings on their interview performance and were less likely to be hired. But there hadn't been any research showing whether anxious interviewees were any less suitable for the job.

"That was our motivation for doing this," said Powell. "If you get a poor rating, you might be missing out on a job that you are well-qualified for."

How Anxiety Shows Up in Interviews
Interview anxiety shows up in all sorts of ways, Powell told me. For example: stuttering, verbal fillers, appearing rigid, showing little eye contact and shaky hands. But her study concluded that low assertiveness and slow talking were the only types that really mattered to interviewers.

"People who were less anxious looked more assertive to the interviewers and did better in the interviews," said Powell.

Does this mean that shy people have a strike against them when they apply for a job? "Could be," said Powell. Her advice: "If you're not naturally extroverted, you need to make sure you sell your skills. Don't be afraid to take ownership of your contribution to a project."

Slow talking proved problematic, Powell said, because interviewers felt it meant the candidates had more trouble coming up with detailed answers to their questions.

How to Be Better in Job Interviews
Powell said the results of the study indicated that when you go into an interview, you should focus less on your nervous tics and more on the broader impressions you convey. Assertiveness and "interpersonal warmth" are critical.

"Be confident, optimistic, professional and likable," she said. "Those make the big difference in an interview."

To get better at these things, advised Powell, do practice interviews with a friend or family member — "especially if you don't like talking about yourself." You want to go into the interview with a "positive image of yourself in your head," noted Powell.

Think of this as Saturday Night Live's Stuart Smalley approach: "I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. And doggone it, people like me."

Powell's advice for interview slow talkers: Rehearse answers to questions you're likely to be asked, providing details in your responses. That could lead the interviewer to talk you up internally and help result in a job offer.